4 ms·

Isn't xantham gum just a product of sugar fermentation? I'm all for fewer ingredients, but cheese is still as much a "chemical" product if the stabilizers and m

by Cpoll 5y ago

Isn't xantham gum just a product of sugar fermentation? I'm all for fewer ingredients, but cheese is still as much a "chemical" product if the stabilizers and mold extractors are removed.

blindmute 5y ago
Lots of nasty things are "just products" of simple ingredients, like seed oils. If the ingredient was invented in a lab less than 100 years ago, I try not to eat it.
- bryans 5y ago
  That's rather disinformative. There is nothing about locust bean gum extraction that is unusual or unsafe, and it certainly wasn't "invented in a lab." It's a seed that gets milled into powder.
  - blindmute 5y ago
    > Xanthan gum was discovered by Allene Rosalind Jeanes and her research team at the United States Department of Agriculture, and brought into commercial production by CP Kelco under the trade name Kelzan in the early 1960s. I don't really care what it is exactly; a food additive that didn't exist until a research team found it 60 years ago, I can do without.
    - bryans 5y ago
      > I don't really care what it is exactly; You've made that perfectly clear, but your personal standards for food safety are entirely arbitrary and not reflective of reality. If you tried applying those same standards to medicine, for example, you'd find that simple injuries all of a sudden become deadly and for no legitimate reason. Also, gums (particularly locust bean gums) have been used in food for hundreds of years, and in other uses for thousands of years. They're nothing new, and your concerns are imagined.
      - blindmute 5y ago
        With the current state of nutrition "science", all food standards are arbitrary. I don't eat any compound ingredients that didn't exist 2000 years ago. So far, my health is superb and I'm one of the few remaining people to not be overweight; I'm actually extremely fit and active. The point is not that I'm right because it works for me; the point is that if you follow recommended diets from various governments, you'll end up on average worse than my entirely arbitrary made up diet I do to feel rustic. Government can be wrong about HFCS and seed oils being safe, and so instead of trusting them, I will just eat what is proven to be safe and wholesome across human history: meat, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, fry in tallow, drink bone broth. Your appeal to science is precisely what I'm avoiding.
        bryans 5y ago
        > With the current state of nutrition "science", all food standards are arbitrary. I don't eat any compound ingredients that didn't exist 2000 years ago. You were just told that gums are a simple and naturally occurring ingredient and have been used for thousands of years, and your rebuttal was to refuse them because you don't eat compound ingredients recently invented in a lab. I think that says everything about the mental gymnastics you're doing to convince yourself that you've got it all figured out. If you eat nuts, or the skins of many fruits, or any root vegetables, then you are consuming gums (aka polysaccharides (aka sugar)). You just don't call it that, because it's one ingredient among many in a larger product -- like say, a potato.
        blindmute 5y ago
        I do not care if my arbitrary diet happens to exclude some perfectly safe and fine ingredients. I literally could not care less about that; I am limiting myself to some relatively known subset of foods. Xantham gum has not been used for any long length of time. If someone would like to replace it with a traditional fruit skin gum or whatever, then I would eat it. You seem to think that I'm arguing that I have the optimal diet, or that if you can prove something I don't eat is safe, then I'm wrong. Obviously, trivially, there is something invented in the past 2000 years that is safe and fine to eat. I just choose not to eat that. I have literally not made an arguable claim in this thread other than stating what my diet is. When you call my diet irrational or unscientific, you fail to understand that I explicitly distrust and ignore nutrition science. Yes, it's naturalistic and unscientific; that is intentional.

by Cpoll 5y ago

Isn't xantham gum just a product of sugar fermentation? I'm all for fewer ingredients, but cheese is still as much a "chemical" product if the stabilizers and mold extractors are removed.

blindmute 5y ago

Lots of nasty things are "just products" of simple ingredients, like seed oils. If the ingredient was invented in a lab less than 100 years ago, I try not to eat it.

bryans 5y ago
That's rather disinformative. There is nothing about locust bean gum extraction that is unusual or unsafe, and it certainly wasn't "invented in a lab." It's a seed that gets milled into powder.
- blindmute 5y ago
  > Xanthan gum was discovered by Allene Rosalind Jeanes and her research team at the United States Department of Agriculture, and brought into commercial production by CP Kelco under the trade name Kelzan in the early 1960s. I don't really care what it is exactly; a food additive that didn't exist until a research team found it 60 years ago, I can do without.
  - bryans 5y ago
    > I don't really care what it is exactly; You've made that perfectly clear, but your personal standards for food safety are entirely arbitrary and not reflective of reality. If you tried applying those same standards to medicine, for example, you'd find that simple injuries all of a sudden become deadly and for no legitimate reason. Also, gums (particularly locust bean gums) have been used in food for hundreds of years, and in other uses for thousands of years. They're nothing new, and your concerns are imagined.
    - blindmute 5y ago
      With the current state of nutrition "science", all food standards are arbitrary. I don't eat any compound ingredients that didn't exist 2000 years ago. So far, my health is superb and I'm one of the few remaining people to not be overweight; I'm actually extremely fit and active. The point is not that I'm right because it works for me; the point is that if you follow recommended diets from various governments, you'll end up on average worse than my entirely arbitrary made up diet I do to feel rustic. Government can be wrong about HFCS and seed oils being safe, and so instead of trusting them, I will just eat what is proven to be safe and wholesome across human history: meat, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, fry in tallow, drink bone broth. Your appeal to science is precisely what I'm avoiding.
      - bryans 5y ago
        > With the current state of nutrition "science", all food standards are arbitrary. I don't eat any compound ingredients that didn't exist 2000 years ago. You were just told that gums are a simple and naturally occurring ingredient and have been used for thousands of years, and your rebuttal was to refuse them because you don't eat compound ingredients recently invented in a lab. I think that says everything about the mental gymnastics you're doing to convince yourself that you've got it all figured out. If you eat nuts, or the skins of many fruits, or any root vegetables, then you are consuming gums (aka polysaccharides (aka sugar)). You just don't call it that, because it's one ingredient among many in a larger product -- like say, a potato.
        blindmute 5y ago
        I do not care if my arbitrary diet happens to exclude some perfectly safe and fine ingredients. I literally could not care less about that; I am limiting myself to some relatively known subset of foods. Xantham gum has not been used for any long length of time. If someone would like to replace it with a traditional fruit skin gum or whatever, then I would eat it. You seem to think that I'm arguing that I have the optimal diet, or that if you can prove something I don't eat is safe, then I'm wrong. Obviously, trivially, there is something invented in the past 2000 years that is safe and fine to eat. I just choose not to eat that. I have literally not made an arguable claim in this thread other than stating what my diet is. When you call my diet irrational or unscientific, you fail to understand that I explicitly distrust and ignore nutrition science. Yes, it's naturalistic and unscientific; that is intentional.